Australia has the third-largest marine exclusive economic zone in the world, but the CSIRO estimates only about 12 per cent of it has been mapped.

Australian National University professor Neville Exon says better maps would benefit Australians in many ways, and would assist in finding planes and ships lost at sea.

"It's useful in the fisheries area, it's useful in the offshore resources area, it's useful in using the knowledge of biodiversity to set up fisheries management activities, and it's also useful in providing at least the framework of where a plane may have crashed," he said.

"If you know the water depth is so and so, the slope is this that and the other, then you can have a better idea of what techniques you'll need to use to do detailed work to find a plane."

You have no doubt been hearing a lot about the Paris Agreement and know that it pertains to climate change, but are too embarrassed at this stage to ask for an overall explanation of what it's all about.